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After the Bleep.


'Sport'. No word instils more fear and trepidation in me than seemingly innocent collection of letters. Except for ‘De Burgh’, when it closely follows ‘Chris’.

I was awful at all sport as a kid. Just passing the school field would result in a football in the face and subsequent winding. My games teachers grew to expect the twice-weekly note from my mum, excusing me from taking part. We'd use every excuse over time, save paralysis or death. Eventually, we settled for the suitably vague 'personal medical problem'. God knows what they thought the problem was; presumably, that I didn't have a penis.

I’m not sure why this would prevent me from participating. Perhaps the cock acts as a rudder.

A lowlight of the few Games lessons I partook in was the Bleep Test. For those unfamiliar with this evil practice, it works as follows: the unlucky participants run from one side of the sports hall to the other in-between two bleeps, which get gradually closer together. As the bleeps speed up, so do you, until you can’t take any more and give up.

It always ended identically. The same man would still be running, long after the rest dropped out through either tiredness or boredom. He’d always look so smug at having beaten everybody else.

I don’t suppose this helped him get a job; there’s not much call for sprinting between bleeps in adult life. 

People died doing the Bleep Test. I know: I was one of them.

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